Implementing an ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system is one of the most costly, time taking and tedious tasks for an IT department.

The integration of mobile devices and applications with enterprise solutions, has added to the level of difficulty. Of course, the addition of mobile applications has greatly improved ERP and brought tons of benefits to the enterprise users, but the disruptive nature of mobile has left many enterprises with unexpected results from their enterprise mobility strategy.

An effective ERP mobile app or enterprise mobile strategy should consider all the facts associated with the business, including mobility purposes, technology considerations, customer interaction strategies and more. Today, enterprises spend a lot of money on developing mobile apps, but all the hard work and money spent developing such ERP mobile apps can go to waste due to some critical blunders.

Such mistakes can heavily damage the overall enterprise goals and mobile strategy.

Big mistakes

Here are the biggest mistakes that enterprises make while implementing or developing ERP mobile apps:

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Failure to understand customer's pain points

According to Gartner, almost 70% of the potential customers will interact with the enterprises through mobile devices. It means if you overlook what your customers/end users want exactly, there are no chances you survive in the market. Try to know what the customer's pain points are and how a proposed mobile ERP will solve those issues.

You can conduct a survey of a group of customers (or employees, in case of internal apps) about the mobile app you're developing and gather their inputs, which will eventually help create a customer-driven mobile ERP app.

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Not standardising the mobile ERP platform

This is one of the most common mistakes enterprises often make while implementing enterprise mobile strategy. Many organisations have multiple operating systems, which can cause integration, storage and data migration issues. Often enterprises are concerned more about the cross-platform compatibility and overlook user experience.

To overcome such issues, it is important that enterprises should standardise the mobile ERP platform across all the applications and environments. If you're planning for BYOD, then it is important to build support for multiple platforms and devices. But, it would increase the security risk and administration costs, so for smaller enterprises, CYOD may work better.

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Conceptualising and designing form factor

There are plenty of choices in the front of the users when it comes to accessing your website or apps, such as tablets and mobile devices. However, that doesn't mean you waste development time and efforts for creating different form factors for different devices used by the users. Not all the enterprise mobile apps require different form factor.

If ERP mobile app involves visualisations or just a review of detailed contracts, then tablet-based designs are needed. But if it involves workflow approvals or general alerts, then there is no need to consider tablet. Try to identify which form factor is superior for you!

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Overlooking networking connectivity for mobile ERP

Network connectivity is a major concern for all the enterprises as it determines the success or failure of your entire mobile ERP strategy. However, many organisations often overlook connection speed, quality of services, reliability and throughput while implementing enterprise mobile strategy. To ensure the success of your enterprise mobile app, it is important that you consider and follow the networking connectivity metrics.

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No need to reinvent the wheel, just try to solve the industry problems

There are many cases where enterprise owners try to reinvent the wheel by connecting their industry with mobile workers and new dimensions of interaction with customers through enterprise mobile app. Of course, it is good to re-imagine processes, but no need to go solving all the problems of the industry.

It is important to know the fact that each and every problem can be best solved at a time. So, rather than solving all problems in one go, it is important that you try to solve the specific industry problem, as each and every problem in industry is complex enough to have its own app.

Of course, this is not the end of the mistakes made during the implementation of enterprise mobile strategy, but these are not the mistakes that enterprise can afford. Avoiding these common, but most critical mistakes with a structured and proven methodology would surely help you get a powerful ERP mobile app!

About Nilesh Talaviya

Nilesh Talaviya works as a mobile strategist for Cygnet Infotech, a leading enterprise mobility company offering tailored app development solutions. He is fascinated with the direction mobile development is taking and loves to write about current trends. Email Nilesh on moc.hcetofni-tengyc@ayivalatcn and follow him on Twitter @niltalaviya

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